The average cost of electricity from projects that will be
built in the cities of East Lyme and Somers will be 22.2 cents a
kilowatt-hour, the state’s Department of Energy & Environmental
Protection said today in a statement.

“We believe the installed costs of these two solar
projects are among the lowest offered by any comparable solar
projects in the nation,” Governor Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat,
said in the statement.

Smaller solar projects in Connecticut producing as much as
250 kilowatts sell power for about 40 cents a kilowatt-hour and
electricity from nuclear and fossil fuel-powered plants goes for
about 8 cents a kilowatt-hour, according to DEEP data.

The agency asked developers to submit proposals for as much
as 10 megawatts of renewable-energy plants and evaluated 21
projects that totaled 70 megawatts. It considered only
technologies that don’t emit carbon dioxide such as solar, wind,
tidal and low-impact hydropower.

A state energy bill passed last year authorized the
development of 30 megawatts of renewable-energy projects.

Northeast Utilities and United Illuminating will submit
proposals next year to the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority
to develop the remaining 20 megawatts of capacity, Tracy
Babbidge, the energy department’s bureau chief of energy and
technology policy, said in a telephone interview.

The energy bill “really captured the attention of private
developers,” she said. “We encouraged a lot of competition.”

Heliosage Energy LLC is developing the Somers project and
GRE 214 East Lyme LLC is developing the facility in East Lyme.